Alligator
Living in a remote kampong is always dull, nothing much to see, nothing much to hear, nothing much to do … if you are ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ to nature and if you are the lazy type. But to those who are proactive, like nature and want to improve life without the hustle and bustle of towns/cities, remote country living is best. However Malaysians I believe like the town/city life better, probably because their early ancestors were mostly the rural folks. The Malays want change.
In all my years in the kampong there were very few exciting moments that I have experienced, or seen or heard. Life just went on day to day, weeks to weeks, months to months and year to year, …….. sounds very boring really. Its no wonder that many of the kampong folks seems very lethargic, moving about slowly, and do not seem to look forward to challenges and excitement. Are they happy as they are? I have no ready answers to that.
There were exciting time though in the old days when the Sultan used to come to the kampong annually (with dancing girls), when the District Office staff came to collect land revenue (“kutip hasil” they used to say) once a year, when the Information Department came to show their almost monthly propaganda films (in an open field), when the ‘badits ‘ used to come to the kampong to shoot at the penghulu’s house at night (and no one from the kampong got hurt or killed), when the Gurkha soldiers used to visit the kampong on their routine anti Communist drives (they always seemed to be at a ready to fight) and when the white British Army conscript boys came once in a while visit to the kampong and they gave us their rations biscuits (could have been dog’s biscuits for all we knew then but we were very happy and pleased to receive those ration biscuits).
Maybe there were other occasions when we could have called them exciting moments. Such as the visits of Tun Abd Razak (a Dato' then) when he was a Politician, a Minister, a Deputy Prime Minister and an Acting Prime Minster of Malaysia. He used to visit the kampong quite often when he was alive.........he had friends in the kampong. Now the kampong is only visited by the small fishes of the local politic (only at near Election time, but the kampong folks fell so honoured anyway, a misplaced feeling).
For me these two incidents were the exciting moments in the kampong life. One was when an alligator decided to float itself, swimming happily for a few days at the mouth of Sungei Chalang (a small river in the kampong). That was about in 1950. Everybody from the kampong went there, all wanting to see the alligator (Malay = buaya). In those days almost every other man had a shotgun, so many wanted to shoot the alligator but was prevented from doing so by the elders in the kampong. If they did that the elders said they could bring bad luck to the kampong (which nobody wanted then or even now), though a few of the ‘naughty’ men threw sticks and stone at the alligator. After a few days the alligator just dived and left.
The other exciting incident was when the kampong folks had to dig out a Y-shaped gate to the Malay School then. Again about the year 1950. The District Officer, who was a well liked man wanted to visit the Malay School, which was then (and still is) one of the rural school in the District. It so happened that this District Officer was a very fat man with a pear-shaped body. On arriving at the gate, which was then very near to the Malay School, he could not manoeuvre himself through the gate. The gate was too small for his pear-shaped fat body though to the thinner and slimmer kampong rural folks, they pass that way everyday with no problem. The gate was made that way to prevent buffaloes (Malay = kerbaus) from entering the area, (the path went through a bund in the kampong padi fields), kerbaus body has rounded solid horizontal shape. In the end the kampong folks had to dig out the gate to let the District Officer through. (They put back the gate after his visit).
Exciting moments for a dull kampong........... a long time ago.
Lipat Kajang people (or decendents) are encouraged to participate& contribute (Orang Lipat Kajang, atau keturunan, di jemput memberi sumbangan idea)
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